AGIS for Windows A simple mapping and GIS shareware package that includes a tutorial to help you with making your own map displays.

ArcGIS Explorer and ArcExplorer are freely available, easy to use, geographic data viewers whose purpose is to allow organizations to provide access to their GIS to a wide audience of non-expert users.

ArcVoyager was created by ESRI's Schools and Libraries team to go along with ArcView. It is a 50-mb package of carefully selected data, ArcView projects, and help files, in a tiered format. There are comparable Windows and Macintosh versions. The help files are written broadly to a
"junior high" level, but ArcVoyager is being used effectively by elementary teachers, middle school students, high schoolers, librarians, college instructors, museum professionals, or parents. Arcview is not required.

AutoREALM is a Free GNU mapping software (a "cartographer") that can design maps of castles, cities, dungeons and more. AutoREALM is generally used by Role-playing Game practicants who enjoy doing their own maps. But it could fits the needs of other people.

Cetus GPS is the Swiss Army Knife of GPS tracking and field data collection. It is intended for use by GIS surveyors, scientists, explorers and GPS enthusiasts who need to extend the features of their standard GPS equipment.

DNRGarmin GPS Application - This extension was built to provide users the ability to directly transfer data between Garmin GPS handheld receivers and various GIS software packages. Using this program a user can use point features, graphics or shapefile, and upload them to the GPS as Waypoints.

EasyGPS is the fast and easy way to transfer waypoints, routes, and tracks between your computer and your Garmin, Magellan, or Lowrance GPS. EasyGPS lists all of your waypoints on the left side of the screen, and shows a plot of your GPS data on the right. EasyGPS works with every popular handheld GPS receiver, and it is 100% FREE!

ExpertGPS is GPS map software for Windows 7, XP and Vista. View GPS waypoints and tracklogs from any handheld GPS receiver over aerial photos and US topographic maps. Plan your next outdoor adventure over scanned USGS topo maps and send a route directly to your GPS receiver to guide you in the field. View your GPS tracklog over an aerial photo to see exactly where you went.

GeoBuddy is the secret tool used by many successful geocachers who race to be the First to Find! With seamless USGS topographical maps and aerial photo coverage of the entire United States, GeoBuddy makes it easy to plan out a day of geocaching, locate parking, and get a bird's eye view of the terrain before you go.

GEO/GARNIX Free coordinate conversion program and tool for communicating between PC and Garmin GPS navigation devices.

I've recently updated the free GPS maps and software resources. New software added and working now on adding free Garmin GPS, Magellan GPS, TomTom GPS and others. Over the next week you will be able to find GPS maps for navigation and tracking for auto, phone and handheld portable GPS devices.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I thought it would be worthwhile to review some of the free tutorials, software programs, geodata and shapefiles, and other resources available to those of you who want to learn GIS and create your own digital maps.

ArcExplorer is a free GIS viewer. With it can view your GIS layers, alter the order in which they appear, change the theme properties and do some queries, but it is not a full-blow GIS programs. In the past, the only way to get a full-blown GIS program was to pay many hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars for the sotware. This has all changed.

There are many free and open source GIS programs out there that give you the capability to do most everything some of the very expensive commercial programs do. My listing of free GIS programs includes many of these. Some of the newest and best include:

My listings of Free GIS Software also includes many tools and resources that will be useful to you as you advance in your understanding of GIS. Most all GIS, both free and commercial, use the defacto standard shapefile format. The number of free shapefiles available to you is growing daily in most any category you can think of. For example:

MapCruzin.com has been online since 1996 providing free GIS software, geodata and shapefiles, tutorials and resources. New items are added on a daily basis and most are announced on the MapCruzin Blog. You can also, follow me on Twitter.

If you'd like updates by email, please sign up at the top of the blog or on any MapCruzin.com page.

Thanks so much and good luck,

Mike Meuser

P.S. Know of any free GIS software, maps, shapefiles, tutorials or resources that should be listed on MapCruzin.com? If you do, please post here. Thnx.

The world of free GIS shapefiles is growing fast. Back in 1996 I started creating and collecting shapefile map layers. Most of what was available to me was United States based. Over the years more and more requests came in for GIS shapefiles for other places in the world. I've made an effort to provide more free international shapefiles, but until fairly recently, they've been difficult to come by.

With the advent of open source, open gis, creative commons and just plain sharing in general, much more is now available.

CloudMade provides free map layers in GIS shapefiles and several GPS formats. These global themes are available by country.

Natural Earth creates GIS shapefiles AND GeoTIFF images of countries of the world. These maps are in the public domain so you can use them for any purpose that you like. I'm very thankful for these extremely useful new cartographic resources. If you are new to GIS, check out the free Learn2map GIS Tutorial and Atlas.